


All the Stars We Steal From the Night Sky

by 0hHeyThereBigBadWolf



Category: Merlin (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Daemons, And Then "Poetry", Angst with a Happy Ending, Canonical Character Death, Daemon Prejudice, Daemon Separation, Daemon Touching, Do Not Re-Post To Another Site, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Good Morgana (Merlin), Magic Revealed, Multi, Poetry
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-31
Updated: 2020-12-31
Packaged: 2021-03-10 21:00:46
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 14,693
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28453518
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/0hHeyThereBigBadWolf/pseuds/0hHeyThereBigBadWolf
Summary: Arthur has never thought about it before, Angharad fighting with him. Why should he? He is her and she is him, and if he's in battle, so is she. He's never thought that anything could actually happen to them.Isn't that always the way of it?
Relationships: Gwen/Morgana (Merlin), Merlin/Arthur Pendragon (Merlin)
Comments: 18
Kudos: 172





	All the Stars We Steal From the Night Sky

**Author's Note:**

  * Inspired by [Something that ought to have lain there unnoticed](https://archiveofourown.org/works/548674) by [SecondStarOnTheLeft](https://archiveofourown.org/users/SecondStarOnTheLeft/pseuds/SecondStarOnTheLeft). 



> Angharad is a feminine Welsh name long associated with royalty, several princesses and queens in both history and myth having it. It means "most loved one," and Ygraine's dæmon gave her the name so she would know she was loved. Not that it worked out, because Uther is a pile of hot garbage. Ómrasyn is my own hybridization of the Irish word ómra, meaning amber, and the Welsh word rhosyn, meaning rose, in reference to Ambrosius, one of Merlin's various names in mythology. In Greek, Ambrosius means immortal.

Angharad had settled when they were nine. A touch sooner than most boys, but then, princes grow up faster. They have to. Arthur had shown up to breakfast with a smug smile, one hand resting on Angharad's sleek golden back. Morgana and Selvelet had glared at him (jealous), Father had given an acknowledging nod, and Tyfainne had scrutinized Angharad for a long moment before shuffling her wings in an approving sort of way.

She's always fought with him in battle, loping alongside Llamrei when he rides, leaping at enemy dæmons. Arthur has never thought about it before, her fighting with him. Why should he? He is her and she is him, and if he's in battle, so is she. Perhaps sometimes they get a little too far from each other in the heat of it, plucking ache into their bond, but it isn't uncommon and always ends almost the moment they feel it, stepping back towards one another.

He's never thought that anything could actually _happen_ to them. Isn't that always the way of it?

They are in the Valley of Fallen Kings (of course they are), he and Leon and a patrol of knights, on the trail of a gang that had ambushed a noble's riding party. They have cornered the gang at the edge of a long-dry river gorge, too deep for anyone to jump down without breaking something, and none of them have any intent of going peacefully to the gallows. Arthur is dueling two at once, trying to keep them from backing him against the edge of the gorge; Angharad is fighting with a third man's dæmon to keep him distracted.

One dies as Arthur gets under his guard, shoving the sword blade up beneath the man's ribs into his heart; his dæmon goes with him in a gold-glittering flash. And the second…the second throws down his blade and leaps at Arthur with arms outstretched. Arthur's sword goes through his middle, but he doesn't care. He knows he is going to die, by blade or by rope. He means to take Arthur along, flinging his entire weight at him, off-balancing him. Arthur staggers back…and finds the edge of the gorge. The world tilts.

Arthur tumbles down the side of the gorge. Angharad is still at the top.

Everything dissolves into a pain unlike anything he has ever felt, nothing he could compare it to, splintering him apart and reducing his world to nothing but awareness of Angharad, his dæmon, his heart, his soul, his _everything,_ and how she's been ripped from him, how he is _alone_ now, he can't feel her, she's _gone_ —

When he hits the ground, vision swimming in greasy streams of colour, all Arthur wants is to die so he can find her again in that peaceful darkness between the stars.

Arthur wakes up to the smell of parchment and herbs, an all-over ache suffusing his body from head to toe and a ragged hollowness in his chest where his heart should be, and he thinks this is a very strange sort of afterlife.

Until he opens his eyes and sees that he is in the physician's chambers. He is in Camelot. He is alive.

Gaius hastens to Arthur's side when he sobs aloud, his scaly, spiny little dæmon clutching one voluminous robe-sleeve. "Your highness—"

"Angharad," Arthur moans, clutching stiffly at his chest—his hands are bandaged, fingertip to forearm—as if he can physically feel the ragged place where his bond to her should be. "Angharad, she's gone. I lost her, she's _gone."_

"She's here, my boy, right here."

"No, no, she's gone, she's gone, I can't _feel_ her, she's isn't there."

"Arthur."

He turns his head at the sound of that voice, _her_ voice, and goes still. It is Angharad but she isn't. She _can't_ be, because his Angharad is sleek and golden and amber-eyed, and she is not. Her thick fur is the colour of shadows on snow, white and silver and hues of grey, and the eyes meeting his are the palest green. Arthur has heard tales of adult dæmons being forced into a new shape as a result of terrible trauma, and what could ever be more traumatic than being _ripped apart?_

"Angharad, I—" Arthur tries to reach for her, but he cannot move his hands well for the bone-deep tremors that begin in his shoulder and run all the way to his fingertips. She moves closer to him, though, ducking beneath his bandaged hand and letting it rest thick and heavy on her head. "Why can't I—? I can't feel—"

"I don't believe you have been severed from her, Arthur," Gaius murmurs, his voice low and soothing, a tone he hasn't used on Arthur since he was eight. "I believe you strained your bond when you fell. You are in a kind of shock, that is why you cannot feel her. The pain is so great your body has closed off from it. It will pass. You will heal, both of you."

Gaius continues speaking to him gently, explaining how it is a miracle Arthur didn't break any bones in his fall or run himself through by falling on his own blade, attributing the dead man's body and his own maille to breaking his fall. He is bruised every shade of purple, though, and he will need to be on bedrest for some days.

Arthur doesn't really listen, still trying to stroke Angharad's fur with his thick, clumsy fingers, but he cannot feel anything through the bandages, only a sore pressure. "My hands," he says, his voice cracked and raw and barely his.

Gaius's mouth thins slightly, and his dæmon crawls into the deep pocket of his robe. "Sir Leon said that you were pulling at your maille, sire, trying to take it off because it hurt."

Hurt. Yes, it had hurt. Not the maille, but everything beneath it, all the bleeding, broken pieces in his chest. He has a vague, hazy recollection of it now, scratching at the steel rings of his maille until his nails tore, scrabbling at the gaps between his plate even as the edges caught on his fingers, made them bleed.

"Take them off," he rasps out.

"Sire, I wouldn't—"

"Take them _off."_ When Gaius only stares at him, Arthur manages to bring his other hand up to his mouth and tries to take the edge of the bandage with his teeth.

"Sire. _Arthur."_ One aged hand lays over his wrist. "Allow me. You'll do more harm that way."

Arthur watches numbly as Gaius unfastens the securing knot and begins unwinding the bandages. There's a strong herbal smell to them, no doubt some concoction to prevent infection and promote healing; underneath, his fingers, hands, wrists are all a mess of cuts that have barely scabbed, nails torn and blood-bruised. Gaius tells him not to try and close his fist or move his fingers overmuch but no more; he hangs the bandages over a rack and quietly takes his leave, saying he will inform the King and the knights, closing the door behind him.

For a moment, they simply gaze at each other. Arthur lifts his hand again, trying to ignore the way his entire arm trembles, and lets it fall onto Angharad's head.

A soft sob escapes him at the first touch of his broken, bloody skin on her new, thick fur because _oh God,_ it _is_ Angharad, it is _her,_ she's still _here,_ they're still _together._ It's like coming home after too long away, the walls of a prison crumbling to reveal sunlight at last, the first gasp of air after drowning. Gaius is right, they're only wounded, their bond pared down to its very core, but it is still there, numbed beneath the pain. It's shifted, changed—she isn't any one piece of him, more a reflection of their whole—but she is still here.

"We're here," Angharad murmurs as he makes a feeble attempt to scratch behind her ears. They're smaller now, covered in thicker fur than before. She moves to brace her forepaws on the edge of the bed beside him, leaning closer to wash his face with her rough-rasping tongue like he's a cub in need of smartening-up. There isn't enough room for her to lay beside him, and he's so sore and bruised that he couldn't stand to have her atop him, so this is as good as it will get until he can move more. Still, he can reach enough to stroke her neck and shoulder, pelt so thick and soft he could drown in it.

Despite all the pain in him, he smiles. "Your spots are the same."

She lowers her head to press her brow to his cheek and purrs.

It's a full day before Arthur can stand up, and another two before he can walk without holding onto a wall or Angharad's shoulder. Gaius scolds him every time he catches Arthur out of bed, his dæmon glaring at Angharad in silent reprimand for encouraging Arthur's foolishness, but he eventually grumbles something about limited movement perhaps helping ease the stiffness, emphasis on _limited._

Father visits him once that first night, just long enough to see that Arthur is alive and for Tyfainne to stare at Angharad with feathers ruffling out, and leaves without a word.

Morgana comes to him at least once a day. The first, she'd hugged him so hard he'd actually whimpered. She'd even apologised for it once she let go, but he didn't mind. Selvelet flies in glittering loops so fast he blurs, coming to alight on the wide bridge of Angharad's nose, spreading gossamer wings over her eyes like a mask. She brings him a book to read during his bedrest—romantic poetry, she thinks she's funny—and promises to catch him up on all the court chatter when he's well.

It isn't until the fourth day that Leon comes to see him, looking like he's not slept since they first left Camelot to pursue the gang. He kneels before Arthur and begs forgiveness for allowing such grievous harm to come to him, Seraphalia huddled in on herself so tightly she's just a mass of bedraggled, mottled feathers. Arthur leans down and manages a somewhat stiff embrace, murmuring assurances to his First Knight, thanking him for bringing them back to Camelot. Angharad reaches up to lightly bat Seraphalia with one heavy-soft paw, claws retracted, an old game of theirs from when they were squires. Leon even manages something like a smile.

They don't realise anything is wrong until Gaius declares them well enough to resume normal duties.

Angharad has remained at his side all the time, always within arm's reach. Their bond is still healing, slowly, like sensation returning to a numbed limb that'd been laid on in sleep, so she hasn't dared go far enough to pull on it.

Arthur is sitting with Morgana in the Hall of Games, playing an idle game of rhythmomachy; Selvelet perches on Angharad's ear like a bejeweled accessory, murmuring all the latest court gossip to her. They look idle enough, but Arthur is taking note of the other courtiers in the hall, gauging the reactions of them and their dæmons. Most are stealing glances at them, murmuring in low voice to each other, but no one is outright staring. He supposes he should be grateful that Angharad's change isn't so very drastic save for her colouring and a slight shift in size.

Morgana is commenting on how well the scars on his hands have healed when there's a disturbance on the far side of the hall, voices climbing to near-shouts. Arthur stands to see past the other tables, sees a pair of noblemen standing at one of the dicing tables and hurling insults and accusations of cheating at each other even as their fellow players try to calm them. Arthur has the highest rank in the hall, so he pushes back from their table and strides over. He doesn't raise his voice over theirs, ordering them both to sit _down_ and be _quiet_ before they are escorted out, then tells each of them to collect their money from the pool and find new tables to wager at.

It isn't until then Arthur realises that the entire hall has gone silent behind him, no rattling dice or shuffling cards, and all five courtiers at the table have gone white as bedsheets, flicking wide eyes up at him as they hastily scrape up their coin from the bettors' dish, all but bolting from the table like rabbits frightened out of a warren.

He turns around and is faced with a hall full of the same pale faces, the same wide eyes, open looks of fear and pity and revulsion. He looks to Morgana, wondering what has happened, and she is the only person not looking at him at all. She is staring beneath their rhythmomachy table where Angharad is standing beside the chair Arthur had vacated.

On the far side of the hall.

Farther away than any person should be from their dæmon.

Unless they were severed.

When they tell him of the incident in the Hall of Games, Father clenches his jaw so tight his teeth creak. Tyfainne opens her wings and screeches at him.

When Arthur leaves the King's study, the sound of things breaking is not entirely muffled by the door. Arthur looks down to meet Angharad's pale gaze and wonders if perhaps it would've been better had they died when he fell into the gorge.

The court stares at him when his back is turned and looks away when they're face-to-face with him. No one looks him in the eye anymore, not even the other young noblemen he had thought to be his friends; most simply stare at the floor. A few braver ones manage to fix their gazes on a point over his shoulder or in the vicinity of his chest. Their dæmons hide from Angharad if they're small enough to get away with it, vanishing beneath cloaks or skirts, taking safety on their person's shoulders or in their arms. They don't speak to her, either, even though they are supposed to greet Angharad too.

Servants do their best to become one with the walls when he passes them in the corridor, and he would swear on his best destrier that the same servant never brings him his meals twice in a row. They take turns with him, like knights on patrol rotation, as if they will be tainted by prolonged contact with him, as if he might try to sever them from their dæmons too—even though he is not _severed_ from Angharad, he _isn't._ Arthur used to occasionally ask a pretty maid to his bed whenever he needed the closeness and warmth of another person, but now they recoil from his touch as though he's a leper, and he will never force himself on anyone, not ever, and the only other warm body sleeping in his bed is Angharad curled up beside him.

They aren't the only ones. Even his knights will flinch from him, no matter how hard they try to repress it when he claps a friendly hand to a maille-clad shoulder on the training field. Even Leon, Leon who had helped him practice his forms and taught him to properly seat a horse, can no longer hold his gaze for more than a heartbeat and tenses when Arthur stands too near. Angharad doesn't swat at Seraphalia anymore, even in play, not wanting to know what her reaction will be.

Morgana…does her best. He gains an appreciation for her that he'd never fully had in all the years of their companionship, and were it not wildly inappropriate, Arthur thinks he might move into her chambers just to remember what it is to be close to another person. She sits beside him at feasts and speaks to him as though nothing's changed. Selvelet still buzzes around Angharad's head as he regales her on the gossip she hears. If he doesn't perch on her ears or crawl over her head as often as he used to, well, she understands.

Morgana is still marriable, but she won't be if she is tainted too deeply by his company.

Arthur is grateful for any scraps he can get now that he's lost his seat at the banquet table.

And then there is Merlin, Merlin with the big ears and bigger mouth, with the tender heart and sharp tongue.

Father makes him Arthur's manservant, and Arthur feels a tight coil of pity and shame in the pit of his belly. He hasn't had a dedicated manservant since the Hall of Games. There isn't a servant who can even stand to bring dinner to his room two nights in a row; he cannot force one to attend on him daily. Angharad leans into his leg hard enough he has to hold onto a chair to keep from overbalancing, and he promises himself that he'll wait a few days for Father to settle, then give Merlin an ample purse for his trouble and leave him to his apprenticeship with Gaius.

Except when he tries to do that very thing, Merlin looks at Arthur like he's trying to give the boy a live viper and goes back to scrubbing the tarnish off Arthur's maille.

As for Merlin's dæmon…well, Arthur isn't quite sure _what_ she is. Ómrasyn looks something like a weasel, except she's the size of a cat, with rich black-brown fur that lightens into hoary-gold in her face and shoulders. She likes to drape herself over Merlin's shoulders like the mink-fur shawls noblewomen wear in winter, and she gives no more of a whit for propriety than Merlin does.

Ómrasyn talks to Angharad, too. Sometimes she'll even try to _play_ with her.

It is strange. Merlin doesn't have the slightest idea of how to be a manservant—he doesn't seem to understand when Arthur tells him things to be done, Merlin is supposed to delegate those tasks to _other_ servants, not to do them himself. He has the highest rank in the royal household with exception of the chamberlain and the King's manservant. He hopes Guinevere will explain it to him; like as not, he'll take it as a jest should Arthur tell him. Merlin can read and write, even do sums, which Arthur finds peculiar for a peasant boy from a small border village. In the same breath, however, he has no grasp of boundaries, of how he is meant to address Arthur, of how to follow social hierarchy.

It is also true that one might not know how much they miss something until it is restored to them unexpectedly. Arthur can't recall the last time he sat down and actually held a conversation with someone (other than Morgana, but even then, he mostly just listens) and when Merlin asks him questions, he's surprised by how scratchy his voice has become when he answers. He is so used to being alone in his chambers that for a while, he startles whenever Merlin makes some noise because Merlin is incapable of _not_ making noise, always dropping things, knocking things over, or talking to Ómrasyn, to Angharad, to Arthur, even to himself. When he finds Merlin reading the book of poetry Morgana had given him, it is on the tip of Arthur's tongue to mock him for it, an unkind reflex from another life, but Angharad moves closer to listen, Merlin reading aloud in a low murmur for Ómrasyn since she can't see well enough up close to read it herself.

What strikes him as perhaps strangest of all is that despite surely knowing of Arthur's…condition, Merlin doesn't seem to ever notice it. Not even purposefully ignoring it, but truly, genuinely not recognizing it. He doesn't use the excuse of being a servant to avoid Arthur's gaze and will meet his eye even when he shouldn't. He doesn't need to repress shivers when they touch because he doesn't shiver at all, initiating contact more often than not.

He hears the murmurs, of course. Whispers of pity circulating about the poor peasant boy the King conscripted to serve the severed Prince and how awful it must be to be bound in servitude to someone so unnatural, quiet rumours wondering whether or not Arthur will attempt to sever Merlin as well or take Ómrasyn from him, whether or not he ever _touches_ Ómrasyn trying to restore what he's lost.

Merlin must surely hear them too. Even he isn't that oblivious.

Every day, Arthur expects for Merlin to come to him, to ask for release from his service before the stain can't be scrubbed out, and every day, Merlin yanks open the curtains in the morning, rouses him with those awful jests of his.

And so it goes, this strange newness.

Merlin smiles and teases and argues and burrows his way into their life and refuses to be prised free despite the whispers and pointed stares.

Arthur sits and watches and runs his scarred hands through Angharad's fur and feels a twisting in the pit of his belly which is neither hunger nor fear.

There is no point to pretending they are anything other than what they are, but nonetheless, during the day, when they are under the eyes of court and crown, Angharad stays close to Arthur's side, within touching distance if she can get away with it. Everyone knows they are separate— _not_ severed, he does not _care_ what they think—but it does no good to flaunt it. They've tested their limits before, and to Arthur's mingled fear-worry-elation-awe, they have not yet reached a distance too great. He wonders if perhaps they are not so different from the sky-witches of the Far North, able to be on the other side of the world from their dæmons without pain, and dreads what Father will do should he ever know. So she rarely ever goes far from him, except late into the night, past the hour of the wolf, when only the night guards are awake. Then, on those nights when Arthur cannot sleep and can scarce breathe for the weight of all that is upon him, he'll open the windows of his chamber wide and let Angharad out. She can scale the wall, they've discovered with some awe, and from there she will go prowling over rooftops and across the ramparts until he can barely keep his eyes open.

It is one such night when Merlin forcibly adjusts his world again.

Curled beneath his thick quilt, feeling the cool breeze from the window chill his nose, Arthur hears the faint click of claws on the stone floors, and for a moment, he almost pays it no mind until he does. Angharad's claws make no noise on the floors because she keeps them retracted and the fur of her paws is so thick. And Angharad is not here, she is prowling along a string of rooftops by the east gate. "Well done getting rid of the rats, Merlin," he sighs, exasperated, and starts to sit up, perhaps see if he can spot the vermin.

 _"I_ got rid of the rats."

Arthur startles so hard he almost knocks his skull on the headboard. He doesn't yelp—he _doesn't_ —as a dark shape leaps onto the foot of his bed, a pair of black-button eyes glittering in the dim. _"Ómrasyn?_ How are you…?" He looks out into his bedchamber, but it is her and only her. Merlin is impossible to miss. He stares at her, only her, and all the disjointed pieces suddenly align like the pattern of a mosaic, illuminating the whole in a blaze of colour and light.

"You're separated from Merlin."

Of course. _Of course._ How could he have been so _blind?_ Merlin never flinches from Arthur's presence, never stares at the empty space where Angharad should be, never hastens from his company. He's never so much as _blinked_ at Arthur being separated from Angharad even when his own knights have repressed shudders and avoided his gaze. And the other servants all treat Merlin as an oddity, something peculiar and not one of their own, and Arthur's been fool enough to think it is only because he's an outsider, some peasant boy from a rural village, not because they can sense whatever it is everyone else senses around Arthur, whatever they see in him which declares him different, marks him as _other._ And Arthur has never noticed because he is the very same.

"How?" he asks softly, sitting up and leaning forward.

Ómrasyn sits back on her haunches. She twitches her nose at him, and he can just barely see the faint lines of her whiskers alongside. "You first."

Arthur curls his hands on his knees hard enough his hands ache, and he thinks his old scars throb. "You know how," he murmurs.

Everyone knows. He's sure people in other _kingdoms_ know. Certainly every princess and noblewoman that Father had hoped to betroth him to. Not that it'll ever happen now. Gaius claims there is no proof of it, no proper science, but there are superstitions about those who have been severed, that quiet, universal brand of knowledge which says they cannot have healthy children, they'll be born deformed, demented, with unnatural dæmons or without one at all, tainted by a wrongness which will never come right. The Pendragon line will end with him unless Father decides to legitimize one of his bastard sons, which Arthur knows he must surely have somewhere, name himself a new heir. Arthur knows he's still Crown Prince only because no suitable replacement has been found for him yet.

"No, I don't. Not from you."

Arthur scrubs both hands over his arms, trying not to look like he's holding himself. He hasn't told anyone about this in…. He's never told anyone. The realisation hits him like a whip-crack, something pain-sharp and abrupt. By the time he'd come out of it, they were already in Camelot, Leon had explained it to Father and Gaius and Morgana, and all the murmurs had already begun. Everyone had known, but no one had asked. He opens his mouth, closes it, and swallows hard, forcing down the sudden thick knot in his throat. When he drags up the words, slow and faltering, it's like pulling the rope end on a quick-release knot, unravelling something that's been snarled up in him so tight for so long that he didn't even realise it was there.

"It's terrible," he gasps out when he finally gets the story out because a dam can't be closed once breached. "I can't stand it, God, I can't _stand_ it, nobody will look me in the eye now, like they're afraid I'll take their dæmons from them, and people flinch when they touch me, even the knights, even Leon, and I-I—" Arthur presses his brow to his knees, arms clasped around his head, shuddering through soft, ragged sobs because he's never been able to weep in front of Father, it would be shamed as weakness, and he's never been able to weep in front of Morgana, it would only upset her, make her rage at Father and get herself in trouble. So he wraps both arms around himself to try and hold his jagged pieces together and cries with someone else's dæmon because he has been hurting for so very long, and Merlin is the first to ever notice it.

When he finally runs out of words and tears, there's a warm weight on his feet that hadn't been there before. Raising his head, he sees Ómrasyn has come closer, laying against his legs, only the quilt between her thick fur and his bare shins. His pulse quickens, sitting thick in the back of his throat, and he has the sudden, terrible, aching idea that it would be the easiest thing in the world to reach down and bury his hands in her pelt. Her fur is near as thick as Angharad's, he's seen Merlin's hands practically disappear in it. He wonders if it would be as soft as Angharad's, too.

Arthur knots his hands in the blanket to keep them where they are. "How did you and Merlin separate?" he asks, his voice scratchy from weeping.

"We were young," Ómrasyn answers, and he can feel the hum of her words against his shin. "Other children in Ealdor, they didn't like us. No one ever liked us, except Axel and Mother. We weren't friends with Tasha and Will yet. One of the older boys, he'd hold Merlin, and his brother's dæmon would hold me, and they'd pull. Not far. Just enough to hurt." She leans into his legs a little harder. "But they'd pull again and again. Eventually, it hurt…less. It was like our bond was…stretching. Like a muscle. It hurts so much when you first start, and it hurts more when you force it, but…the more it happens, the stronger it gets."

Arthur's never thought of it that way, but it makes a sort of sense now that he is. The bond between a person and their dæmon could be compared thusly, only their muscle is formed not from flesh and sinew but something golden and soul-bright. His and Angharad's bond hadn't stretched, it'd been wrenched almost in twain, torn so deeply the very nature of it had changed, had changed Angharad. "So you and Merlin realised you could be further apart," he murmurs.

"Yes. When Will found out, he fought both the brothers. Knocked two teeth from one. They left us alone after that, but…we decided to keep trying. To see if we could get further. Eventually, it stopped hurting at all. It took years, but we did it."

Arthur rests his chin on one knee. "Were you afraid that you might…pull too far?" He and Angharad have healed, are still one, but he _knows,_ somewhere in that cold, empty place he's carried since his fall, that if he had fallen just a bit deeper, if she had been just a bit further away, then they wouldn't be. Those few tenacious threads that'd refused to break would've snapped, she would've vanished from him in a flash of shimmering gold, and he would've been alone until he died and rejoined her.

"Sever ourselves? Yeah, a bit."

"Then why do it?"

"So no one else could do it to us."

And that makes more sense than anything else he's heard, so he doesn't ask any further than that and ignores the part of him which whispers that magic is used to separate person and dæmon as well, like the witches of the ever-winter lands in the Far North.

Instead, Arthur shifts on the bed, laying back down and pulling the blankets up against the chill (the window has to stay open, though, or Angharad won't be able to get back in) and rearranging the pillows as he likes them. Ómrasyn shifts off his legs to let him move, but once he's settled, she climbs up back up him and lays on his side, head on his flank and hindfeet on his hip, tail draped over his thigh. The blanket is still between them, no part of them touching, but it is closer than Arthur's been to anyone else's dæmon, even before the fall.

"Ómrasyn?"

"Arthur?"

"Why did you come to my chambers tonight?"

He feels the slight pressure as she flexes her claws on the bedding, not hard enough to pierce and touch him, but close. "We saw Angharad on a roof, from our window. She wanders when you can't sleep."

Arthur wonders if he really is so transparent, how they even know such a thing, and why it doesn't seem to bother him in the least that they do.

He meets Princess Vivian of Anglia at the Accord of the Five Kingdoms.

When Arthur tries to help her dismount from her pretty white palfrey in the courtyard, she pulls back on the reins, making the beast shift its weight backwards. The message is clear enough. He corrects, holds the bridle until a servant brings over a mounting block.

She is a shallow, shrewish thing with a barbed tongue and a cool affect, full of scorn for everything Camelot has to offer. She is either very brave or very foolish, to insult Guinevere within Morgana's hearing (and within reach of Morgana's dinner fork). She does not let Arthur touch her, not even with the layers of her gown and his gloves between them.

Her dæmon cavorts beside her with that same untouchability, always preening at his glossy breast, flashing his crest, shaking out his metallic-hued feathers. He does not tell anyone his name, and does not speak to anyone else's dæmon save King Olaf's rumbling she-bear.

Beneath the tablecloth at dinner, Ómrasyn winds herself sinuously between Angharad's forelegs and wonders aloud, in a low, private tone, whether or not that gaudy dæmon of hers would taste any good under all those feathers or if he'd be just as vapid as Vivian's thoughts.

Morgana. Merlin. Magic.

He isn't even surprised anymore, and isn't _that_ something? Perhaps what people say of him are true, because he is severed (separated) from Angharad, he is similarly detached from emotion. Angharad nips his hand sharply, reminding him that his emotions are _just fine_.

And they are, because when Morgana huddles on her bed and sobs out her fear, Arthur feels as though his heart is being carved out through his ribs, a sliver at a time.

"You won't burn," he murmurs into her hair, embracing her as he hasn't been able to since the fall. Guinevere is pressed against her mistress's back, face buried in her hair, and Merlin sits on her other side, shoring her up on three sides. She isn't alone. Not now, not ever again. She had not left him, and he will not leave her.

"You won't burn, Morgana. I won't let you." Arthur raises his eyes to Merlin's, holding his gaze over the top of Morgana's dark hair. _Either of you._

"What are we going to do?" Guinevere asks softly, looking to him. Arthur isn't going to ask why she is here this late or why she had been sitting in Morgana's bed in a nightrail when he and Merlin arrived. He certainly isn't going to ask why Selvelet is clinging to her dæmon's back, small body pressed into thick fur as close as possible.

Arthur looks down at Angharad to find pale green eyes staring back at him, reflecting the candlelight in metallic orange-red. Morgana cannot stay in Camelot, not when her magic is so uncontrolled. She will be found out eventually, and Father…. The King will not spare her, ward or no. "The Druids," he says at last. "They would help, wouldn't they?"

Merlin raises his gaze from where he'd been murmuring reassurances to Morgana, conjuring flowers in his open palm to help calm her. "They would. They don't turn away anyone in need of help, especially those of magic," he answers at last, seeming faintly surprised that Arthur is asking his opinion.

"Then that is where you will go."

"How?" Morgana has loosened her iron grip on his wrist, though there's still red marks where she had dug nails into him, and she squeezes tight again, demanding. _"How?_ Uther won't let me go. You know that. He will _never_ let go."

No, he won't. She and Arthur are the King's most prized possessions, and he shan't let anyone have them unless they can be exchanged for something more valuable. Even if they concoct some lie about her wanting to go home to Cornwall for a time or to visit some noblewoman she's befriended, there's too much of a risk that word will come back to Camelot, or that the King will decide to join her, to visit. She'd have to go somewhere he wouldn't.

Lightning flashes outside, briefly painting the chamber in stark black-and-white, throwing up jagged, broken shadows from the broken glass of the window. Arthur stares at the floor where the shadow of the broken frame had just been. "I have an idea," he murmurs.

It takes near a full sennight to convince the King, but Arthur has never doubted Morgana's ability to play him like a well-tuned lute. She had learnt a long time ago which of them is the favourite, and it's never been below her to take advantage of that. Daresay her own appearance does half the convincing for her, natural fairness giving way to unhealthy pallor, shadows smeared beneath her eyes like bruises. The evidence of her fear of the King is the very thing which moves him to agree.

The irony of it is almost comparable to their pretense—pretending belief in a religion in order to seek out another.

To escape the King, Morgana has to go somewhere he would not. And Arthur can think of no place more discomfiting to his father than an abbey full of devout women who believe his authority is not absolute in comparison to their god. The idea is that Morgana will go there with Guinevere to spend a year in pious reflection without outside influence, including visitors and letters. In truth, Merlin has made arrangements for them to stay that year in a Druid camp, under the tutelage of their elders so she might learn use and control of her magic.

Arthur leads her escort, of course. In part to reassure the King no extra guard will be needed, in part to have reason for Merlin to accompany them.

The night before they reach the abbey, as they make camp a safe distance from the road, Ómrasyn slinks about and warns the three of them not to eat anything. Merlin may only be a physician's apprentice in part, but he learns well. Once the rest of the honour guard is deep into their drugged sleep, Merlin goes to each man, lays fingers to their temples, and murmurs somewhat which makes his eyes spill into gold, reminding Arthur of the bright fire dæmons are forged of. They'll not wake until dawn, and when they do, they will all have the memory of making another day's journey to the abbey, safely delivering Morgana and Guinevere into the care of the holy sisters, and beginning the journey back to Camelot.

Morgana's only brought a few things with her, to better fit the ruse of living humbly in the abbey—only a few of her simpler, more practical gowns, none of her jewels or cosmetics, her riding cloak and an extra pair of sturdy boots. It makes it all the easier for it to be packed together in a carriable bag, with another for Guinevere's possessions. The women only take time to change out of their gowns into tunics and breeches before they start walking further into the forest, Merlin leading the way.

Arthur lets Angharad lope out in front of them to scout the path. Ómrasyn has left Merlin's shoulder and is in the trees above them, leaping from limb to limb overhead in a soft rustle of leaves.

"There is someone ahead of us," Angharad murmurs as she lopes back towards their party, resuming her pace beside Arthur. "We've seen him before. When we returned the Druid boy, Mordred."

Sure enough, when they enter a small clearing amidst the trees, there is a single figure waiting for them, the silver-haired Druid he had seen once before, a badger just as grey and earthy as him resting placidly beside his feet. He inclines his head to them as they approach; his dæmon dips her muzzle. "My lords, my ladies. It is good to see you here safely. I am Iseldir. Are you ready?" he asks, looking to Morgana.

She begins to step forward, then pauses and turns back. Her embrace smells of violet perfume and is firm around Arthur's shoulders. He leans into her and wraps arms around her in return, knowing he'll not have this again for a year. "Thank you," she murmurs before letting go. Only standing so near to her is Arthur able to see the faint shiver which goes through her, whether from fear or excitement, he cannot tell. "I am," she tells Iseldir, and her voice does not shiver. Selvelet clings to the end of her braid like a jeweled clip, swinging as she crosses the short distance to stand with the Druid; Guinevere stays at her side, her dæmon bounding through the tall grass in leaps.

Iseldir gives a small smile, something almost fatherly in his aspect. "Just past the treeline there are others waiting."

Arthur watches Morgana and Guinevere until he cannot see them for the darkness and the undergrowth. "You will look after her? She'll be safe?" he asks.

"Of course. You've done her the greatest kindness by bringing her to us." Iseldir's gaze moves to Merlin, and for a moment, the two stare at one another unblinking. Arthur is reminded of rumours claiming sorcerers can speak to each other without words if they choose.

Finally, Iseldir breaks gaze with Merlin and says, "Keep watch for our ravens. I imagine she will want to send you letters soon."

As he begins to turn away, however, it is Angharad who speaks, not Arthur. "They say magic is used to sever someone from their dæmon, that it is how the witches of the Far North do it, to be apart from their dæmons. Is it true?"

Iseldir stares at Angharad directly for a long moment, propriety be damned. "No," he says at last. "To sever a bond so sacred…it is an abomination. It is the only crime we punish with death. There are places in the world, sacred places, where dæmons cannot tread. To cross to one such place is a trial of the greatest sort, for it does require leaving your dæmon behind, to pull upon your bond until distance ceases to carry meaning. That is what it is to be separated from your dæmon. It is not severing. The witch-clans of the North see such a thing as a rite of passage. Here, it is a challenge undertaken only by those who choose it willingly. And those who survive it are to be accorded respect above all else, for it means they have the blessing of the Goddess upon them." A faint smile touches his lips as he inclines his head towards them, then departs into the darkness.

As they start back towards the camp, Arthur glances over at Merlin. Ómrasyn has returned to her usual place on his shoulders, her pointed muzzle tucked up under his chin. "What were you two talking about?" he asks in a low voice.

"Hm?"

"You and Iseldir. Wasn't that what you were…?" Arthur gestures towards his temples.

"Oh, _that._ He was telling me I would be welcome to join them if I ever wanted to."

Arthur curls his hand in the thick fur around Angharad's shoulders, squeezing until his fingers ache and his scars throb. "Would you?" The words ache in his throat, but he forces himself to say them anyways.

"No." Merlin smiles, a flash of white teeth in the darkness. "I know where I need to be."

Within a sennight of her leaving, Morgana sends him a blank piece of parchment.

Merlin holds it over a candle flame, so close Arthur thinks he means to burn it. Instead, letters begin to appear, ink darkening on the page as if soaking in.

Not magic, merely science.

It is written in ogham, however; Arthur stays awake an entire night at his desk with Merlin, learning to translate it and write his own letters in return.

She writes to him, not quite regularly to avoid being noticed, and none of her letters are terribly long, only what is able to fit in the small leather case on a raven's leg. Still, Arthur knows her well, and he can read between abbreviated lines.

She is happy in the camp, happier than she has ever been in Uther's court, learning the ways of the Old Religion. She has found their Druid boy again as well; his dæmon is still unsettled, but the elders consider him a prodigy and have him studying with her. Guinevere will sometimes add a few words, mostly reassuring Arthur that Morgana is well looked-after or the odd jest which only Merlin understands.

Morgana is not the only one learning, however.

Merlin brings him a book of magic (a _grimoire,_ he explains) which is apparently from Gaius, shows Arthur its contents, performs some of the spells for him, explaining to him the workings of the Old Religion. When Merlin does magic, Ómrasyn's eyes do not change colour as his do, but she shivers all over, and when he sees her from the corner of his eye, Arthur thinks he sees a shimmer of gold across her pelt, there and gone like a ripple on a lake.

Sometimes his fingers itch with the desire to learn what it feels like, that ghost-gleam of stardust, and he has to dig his thumbnail into one of the scars on his hand.

Sometimes he wants to find out whether or not magic tastes like gold, and he has to bite the inside of his mouth until he tastes blood instead.

Father attempts to betroth him to Princess Elena of Gawant.

Arthur imagines the proposal only gets as far as it does because of Father's long friendship with King Godwin, the standing alliance of their kingdoms, and the (very subtly) suggested idea that, like Arthur, Princess Elena doesn't have many options.

It isn't that she is a _bad_ person, or even an unpleasant one, it is just that she is so very…awkward. Even her dæmon seems to constantly forget how large he is, or how tall his antlers are, always knocking into the tops of doorframes and backing into furniture.

At their first shared meal together, he tries to bow to the two kings, gets his tines snagged on a candlestand, then knocks over the whole thing when he tries to backpedal out of it, sending candles rolling across the floor and spattering wax everywhere. One hoof treads square on Angharad's tail, and she launches across the hall like a bolt from a bow. Arthur barely manages to keep in his chair, but he _does_ slam one knee into the underside of the table with enough force to make all the crockery jump.

Angharad stays on the far side of the dining hall the rest of the meal, no matter the venomous glare Tyfainne bends her way. King Godwin’s eyes keep straying down to the empty space beside Arthur’s chair, and Elena shies back in her chair every time Arthur reaches over the table to refill his plate.

Merlin ensures he never runs short of wine, though, and in leaning down to fill his cup, suggests that Arthur think of it like a tourney—wager on who will be injured first and keep a shield handy just in case it turns out to be him.

Seven months after her departure, Morgana invites them to come and visit her and Guinevere. It isn't quite Yule—he will be expected at his father's side then, to sit and show a united front to the kingdom, even if he is the severed prince with a changed dæmon—but the Druids never close their camps, and he is welcome to join it as her guest.

It isn't easy to convince Father that he is going on a hunt in the middle of winter, but a few subtle comments about the state of the castle larders and a mention or two of fresh meat at Yule, and he and Merlin are venturing out of the city on a pair of shaggy, fat-bellied horses with legs like trees. Not exactly elegant mounts, but they do not founder in deep snow even if they sink in up to the gaskins.

Angharad is in her element. Arthur's never truly paid attention to it before, but Merlin makes note of how she is nigh invisible amid the trees compared to the dark streak of Ómrasyn, even darker now that her winter coat has come in. He calls her beautiful. Arthur twists the reins tighter around his gloved hands; no one's said such a thing about her since the fall.

Away from prying eyes and gossiping mouths, their dæmons have free run, sprinting far ahead of the horses, zigzagging between the trees, back and forth across the path. Ómrasyn makes a game of nipping at Angharad's thick tail then leaping away, luring her into a chase into deeper snow. Ómrasyn is small enough to run atop the icy crust without breaking through it; Angharad is not. Merlin laughs so hard he almost falls from his saddle when Angharad leaps into a snowbank so deep she vanishes right up to the black tips of her ears. Arthur waits until they pass beneath a particularly snow-heavy tree, draws his dagger, and stands in his stirrups to thwack the flat of the blade against a branch. It falls on both of them, but Merlin gets the worst of it, laughter turning to sputtered curses.

Morgana is waiting for them when they reach the Druids' winter camp, located in a deep cavern which is practically invisible until they are almost inside its mouth. Arthur leaps down to embrace her, even wrapping arms around her waist to lift her up. When he sets her back down, he can see how she's changed. She's regained the weight she had lost, the bones of her face no longer starkly visible, the shadows around her eyes gone, and there is a brightness to her that he hasn't seen in years, a vivacity she'd lost somewhere. She looks more herself in their heavy wool and leather than she does in velvet and furs.

"Oh, damn it all," he mutters, glancing back and realising that Angharad has disappeared into the trees again. "Wait a moment, I'm sure she's near enough to hear—"

Morgana grasps his arm with a shake of her head. "Leave her, Arthur, she'll take no harm here."

He doesn't move forward, setting his weight back against her gentle pulling. "No one will…take it amiss?" If he ever dared to show up to a meal in Camelot without Angharad at his side, Father would've removed his chair from the table himself.

Merlin rests a hand on his back, lowering his voice to a murmur. "Remember what Iseldir said."

Arthur glances at him and sees no sign of Ómrasyn, then takes a deep breath, forcibly quieting the knot of unease in the pit of his belly. He's survived the gauntlet of Camelot's court; he'll not quail before a cavern of Druids. "Alright. Let's go before it starts snowing again."

Morgana's expression shades into understanding, tightening her arm around his own as she leads them inside.

He had thought that Selvelet had been hiding under Morgana's layers somewhere or burrowed under her hair, but when they make their way into the surprising warm cavern, stomping snow from their boots and shaking off their cloaks, Guinevere comes to greet them with Selvelet clinging to her curls like a hairpin and her own dæmon springing along at her feet. For an instant, for the span of a heartbeat, Arthur feels an envy so deep it could almost be hate, but then Guinevere embraces him like a brother, and it vanishes back into the dark, cold place it lives in.

Iseldir welcomes them in, announcing their presence to the rest of the gathered Druids who turn at the sound of his voice; some look vaguely pleased to see them, some curious, some wary. And they are all looking at him. For a moment, Arthur feels that sickly-hot tightness prickling across his body, making the skin between his shoulder blades feel tight, but then something solid runs into him about waist-height, staggering him back a step into Merlin and he is more concerned about not falling over.

"Mordred has been waiting to see you again," Morgana explains indulgently, grasping the boy's shoulders and drawing him back from Arthur before they overbalance and hit the ground.

"Yes, yes, because look, we've settled!" the boy says, pointing at himself.

For a moment, Arthur doesn't understand, but then he realises the stripe of green looped through Mordred's curls and around his neck isn't a ribbon or cord but his dæmon, a slender serpent hardly thicker than a man's thumb; her head is tucked down in the hollow of his throat. "She's lovely," he says and means it. People like to say serpent dæmons are a sign of an unwell personality, but they also believe Arthur has no soul.

"He asked us not to tell you in our letters, so he could show you himself. And now he has, so he can go and wash his hands if he expects to sit with us at supper," Guinevere adds, grabbing the boy's nearest wrist and raising his hand, the fingers of which are stained purplish. Arthur is familiar with the signs of someone who's been into the dessert dish.

Mordred lets out a huff but goes obediently.

"Speaking of supper, everything is almost ready. You'll be sitting with us," Morgana says, linking her arm with Arthur's and guiding him further into the cavern. It isn't sectioned off in any noticeable way, though there do seem to be individual hearths with bedding arranged around them, the odd lean-to set up against the cavern walls. She leads him over to the hearth beside one such lean-to. "Here, sit down. It's custom that guests be served first. And do not _ever_ expect me to bring you dinner again," she adds, jabbing a finger at Arthur.

"Yes, mistress," he retorts, then ducks beneath her answering swat.

As they warm chilled hands and feet by the hearth, Arthur notices that whilst some of the smaller children openly gaze at him, they do so with a kind of awe, like he's some splendid hero from their bedtime tales. As for the adults, none of them look twice at the empty spaces where Angharad and Ómrasyn should be. Now that they have been welcomed in and sat at a hearth, they are no longer an unknown to be wary of, merely guests. Only two crones sharing a hearth seem interested in their presence, looking deeply amused, as though they are privy to some great jest.

"Those are the elders," Merlin murmurs beside him. "There are three who lead each camp. Iseldir is one, those are the other two."

"Are they…separated?"

"At least one of them, certainly." Merlin nudges him. "Stop fretting, Arthur."

Morgana and Guinevere return to the hearth with a freshly-scrubbed Mordred in tow, carrying bowls of a thick stew that smells as fragrant and delectable as anything to come out of the castle kitchens. They sit together around the hearth to eat; Mordred claims a seat between Arthur and Morgana, chattering on happily between bites. He talks enough for the rest of them.

Angharad and Ómrasyn do not rejoin them until well after dinner, when they are lying on the arrayed furs and blankets around the hearth, drowsing in warmth and fullness. Angharad still has snow clinging to her legs and belly, and Ómrasyn is frost-tipped, riding on Angharad's back between her shoulders. No one calls out in alarm when a pair of singular dæmons walk past their hearths, no one stares after them in pity or horror. A few murmur, but the only one loud enough to be heard clearly is the voice of a small child— _"Look, mama, how pretty!"_ —before it is gently hushed.

Arthur doesn't sleep that night. It isn't for lack of comfort, but rather, almost an excess of it. He can hear Mordred's vague sleeping murmurs only an arm's length away from him; Morgana and Guinevere's soft breathing from beneath their lean-to, sometimes falling into a tandem so perfect he cannot tell them apart; Merlin's snuffling from just beside him, so close, so close that Arthur can feel the stir of Merlin's breath on his nape when he breathes deeply.

"It's…good here," Angharad murmurs, lying alongside him, her head resting beside his chest.

Arthur hums assent, slowly running his hand up and down her flank, feeling the rise-and-fall of her breath.

"Do you want to leave?"

His hand stills. "We cannot stay."

"That is not what I asked you."

Arthur curls his fingers in her fur tight enough to feel the vibrating rumble of a growl. "I know."

Mordred asks if he will be allowed to come back to Camelot with Morgana and Guinevere at the turn of the year.

Arthur is loath to refuse him. They love him, and he likes the boy, more than he would have expected to, but that is exactly the reason why he must refuse. He does, however, make the promise of later, later when it is safe. Then, Mordred can come to Camelot, even live in the castle if he wishes, let Morgana coddle him to her heart's content, learn to play games of court. In all truth, Arthur would be _delighted_ to see the cossetted offspring of the court interact with these Druid children. Mordred in particular has the tendency to bite when the older ones get too rough with the younger.

On the morning when they are to leave, Mordred holds the bridle of Arthur's horse as he is tightening the girth strap and tells Arthur that when he is old enough, he will be going to _ogof y sêr,_ to separate himself from Athelis.

Arthur's hands slip, and he nearly stabs himself in the hand with the buckle. Angharad is nowhere in sight. He has a vague idea of where she is and could point in her direction if prompted, but he knows she is far. He wishes she was here; she's better at speaking to people than he is. There is some kind of irony in that, but he can't be bothered to look too hard. "It can be very lonely," he murmurs at last, rubbing at the sore spot on his palm. "People can be…unkind." That is one word for it. Cruel is another. He could think of more, but Morgana will fill his boots with snow if he frightens her boy.

Mordred leans his head against the horse's thick, shaggy neck. "I know."

Of course he knows. Mordred is a sorcerer in the Five Kingdoms. He has lived in a lonely and unkind world since the day he was born. And it is Arthur's father who has helped the world be so cruel to him. To him, to Morgana, to Merlin.

Arthur pauses to look at him. He remembers the Druid man that had been captured and executed when Mordred was first in Camelot; he wonders if he had been Mordred's father. "What is… _ogof y sêr?"_ he asks instead, taking care to pronounce it correctly, and Mordred spends the rest of their time together telling him about a chasm in the earth where dæmons cannot enter. The legend amongst the Druids says it was created when a star was cast into the earth. Those who choose that path will go in. Some come out. Some do not.

"Be sure you are one of the former," Arthur murmurs, wrapping an arm around the boy's shoulders and pulling Mordred against his side.

"I will." Mordred leans into him, and Athelis winds her long, sinuous body in a loop around Arthur's arm once before slithering back into the warmth of Mordred's layers. She is too small and his sleeve is too thick for Arthur to feel much more than a slight rasp of pressure, but warmth spreads from the contact nonetheless, sinking into his chest and curling up in his heart alongside Merlin and Morgana and Guinevere.

It is not _quite_ like his bond to Angharad, that feeling. But it's close.

Arthur is quite sure Princess Mithian of Nemeth likes Merlin more than him.

Of all the potential princess-consorts and queens-to-be he's courted over the years, he thinks she may be the only one he has the much of anything common with. She is absolutely the only one who does not actually have need of him. Nemeth is unique amongst the kingdoms in that their law dictates the firstborn _child_ inherits, not the firstborn _son_. Her future as queen is not dependent upon her choice of husband. Still, he thinks he ought to be insulted that she seems to prefer the company of his manservant.

When they stop for lunch after a rather splendid hunt in the kingwood, Ómrasyn climbs up into the slender sapling where Mithian's dæmon perches, a sea-hawk with sharp yellow eyes and talons as long as a child's fingers, and asks if he's ever heard the story of Kêr-Ys, brazenly candid.

He hasn't, and so it comes to pass that Arthur is reclining against Angharad's flank, drowsing with eyes-half lidded as his manservant sits beside the princess he is meant to be courting and tells the tale of a Breton king whose city sunk into the sea as punishment for either his sins or the sins of his daughter, it varies. The king escapes the sinking city by casting his daughter into the sea where she becomes a merrow, which prompts Mithian into recalling her own tale of how Nemeth was formed, by a merrow-queen taking a sailor for her husband and establishing a kingdom where sea meets shore, claiming it as the source of their peculiar inheritance laws.

All in all, Arthur says the least out of the three of them, and for a first, he doesn't mind it in the least.

The King has always been more or less indifferent to the border villages. He ensures the borders themselves are well-manned, of course, and that any encroachment from other kingdoms is dealt with quickly, but he’s never given much thought to the _people_ who live in those small rural villages and hamlets, some of them consisting of no more than ten sod huts and a single communal barn. Arthur always had, but he had begun giving them more consideration after visiting Ealdor, seeing how Cenred had abandoned his own people to be preyed upon, left them so desperate a woman traveled alone across an entire kingdom to beg the help of a rival king.

(He’s never respected a person as much or as quickly as he respected Hunith the day she came into the King’s court with her bruised face and her faded kirtle and her stately dæmon with antlers reaching higher than a man’s head. He understood where Merlin got his mettle from after that.)

Apparently, despite the effort he has put into improving the state of the borders, there are some who take it upon themselves to stage their own rebellion under the instigation of some fool with a powerful dislike of the King.

Arthur wishes he would have heard about it, so he could warn them as to what they would bring upon themselves. If there is one thing the King has never tolerated, it is insurrection. Which is the why when word reaches Camelot, he decides to handle it personally instead of sending a regiment of the army. Since he means to go, he will have every raised voice silenced and every instigator put to the sword.

One would think that the Purge would have taught them something about the extent of the King’s mercy.

He does his best to convince the King to stay in the city, allow Arthur to go in his stead and settle things. When those words fall on deaf ears, however, he says he will stay in Camelot. Merlin wants him to go. All these years, and he still doesn’t _understand_. Arthur cannot sway the King from this course, and the more he tries to speak reason to the man, the angrier he will become, the worse it will be. If he goes, then he will be expected to _obey;_ he will be expected to capture and execute those people. If he goes, then Merlin will come with him; Arthur does not want Merlin to watch. The executions are hard enough for him, the blood-smell and the black lines of soot and human fear permanently ground between the courtyard’s pavers, but Merlin has never seen the full extent of the King’s capacity for…impersonal cruelty.

The King leaves. Arthur stays. His meals arrive almost colder than his bathwater, and Ómrasyn hisses if Angharad so much as looks at her too long, bristling like a cat. Merlin’s silence hurts more than the entire court’s denunciation. Arthur strokes his hands through Angharad’s fur and tries to convince himself he isn’t a coward.

Over the years (more often in the past few), Arthur has often wondered how his father would die. He imagines all people think it at some point, the kind of morbid curiosity which comes with looking at another person and having the realisation that one day, they will no longer be there. When he was younger, he had hoped his father would die in his own bed, white-haired and toothless, Arthur already married with an heir of his own. When he was older and understood more, he wondered if there would ever be a time when his father rode out to do battle with Mercia or Essetir only to be carried home by his knights, or if perhaps Odin or Caerleon would ever succeed in their attempts to have him assassinated. Poisoned at his table or knifed in his bed.

He’s never imagined Uther Pendragon would find an end at the hands of a carrot farmer with a well-tended pair of shears.

Sir Kay has been First Knight to the King as long as Arthur’s memory stands, and it is Sir Kay who recounts the events to Arthur after the King’s party returns to Camelot without the King:

It hadn’t been so much of a battle as it had been a slaughter. The King had ordered every one of the would-be rebels to be rounded up and executed. When they had scattered, the knights gave pursuit, breaking guard formation to ride them down. Understanding the inevitability of his own death, one man had run directly at the King, shaggy cur dæmon attacking his horse’s legs. For lack of proper weapons, the rioters had made do with their everyday tools, sharpening shovels and hoes and kitchen knives and garden shears, which is the very weapon the man used to stab the King when he was trying not to be thrown from the saddle. It wasn’t sharp enough to cut through his maille, but it was certainly sharp enough to cut open his thigh near to the bone. The King had taken the man’s head off with a single clean blow, but too late. He was already a dead man, had bled out before anyone could even ask for needle and thread. They had cremated the King at the borders, brought his bones back to Camelot to be interred in the burial vault.

He keeps waiting for the grief to appear, for the pain, for the sorrow, and yet…. He had felt a kind of numb horror when he had first seen the party returning with his father and Tyfainne nowhere in sight, and he’s certainly felt uncertainty with the realisation that he alone is now responsible for an entire kingdom, but when he thinks on his father no longer being here, it isn’t so much as outright pain than it is an ache, a deep pang of loss more akin to what he feels when he thinks about his mother and all he never had with her. Despite Angharad’s insistence otherwise, Arthur wonders if there is something wrong with him, if he had broken more than he knew in the fall.

"I'm sorry."

Drawn from his thoughts, Arthur makes a sound in his throat that isn't quite a laugh or a scoff, but some pained thing between the two, turning in his chair to look at Merlin. "Are you truly?" It is hard to imagine that a sorcerer is sorry for the death of a man named the Bloody Tyrant, the Scourge of Alba, who would have burnt him alive for the crime of breathing.

Merlin crosses the chamber, silent as he never is otherwise, until he standing beside Arthur’s chair; Ómrasyn sidles around to the other side and silently situates herself between Angharad’s forelegs, leaning against her. He is quiet for so long that Arthur does not expect him to say anything else. He still does, because he is Merlin and he doesn't know how not to speak. "I am not sorry for your father's death. But I _am_ sorry you're hurting, Arthur.”

“I’m not,” he says abruptly, then sinks teeth his lip until he tastes blood. “I know I probably should be, but…I’m not. Not really. I think I almost feel worse about the fact that I feel so little. Do you think me cold?”

“If you are, it is a coldness of his own making.”

Arthur rests his hand on the strong curve of Angharad's shoulder, curling his fingers into her fur, feeling her warmth. "I loved my father…or, at least, I loved him once. I used to admire and respect him more than anyone else. I used to think he was the strongest man I knew, but…I have watched him rule. I have learnt that if you never trust anyone, then you will always live in fear. His hatred came from fear, not from strength. I have to govern Camelot in my own way. I have to do what I think is right."

"I have no doubt you will."

Another sound slips from him, but this one is closer to a laugh. Merlin has never doubted him, has he? Arthur could very well say the sun will rise in the west tomorrow and it would still be so. He gazes down at his scarred hands, twisting his mother’s ring on his forefinger. “It shan’t be easy,” he murmurs. He dares not name their task aloud, not now, not here, but he must say it nonetheless.

“I know.”

“It will take years.”

“I know.”

“People won’t change their beliefs quickly. Maybe not in our lifetimes.”

“I know.”

Arthur raises his gaze to find Merlin gazing at him steadily. In the low light of the candles, Merlin’s eyes are nearer to violet than blue, the deep hue of twilight lit with sparks of gold which always seem to be there. “Will you help me?” he asks softly.

“Of course.”

If the court had been uneasy with having a severed man for their prince, they are outright anxious to have a severed man as their king. Arthur knows he isn’t severed, but it doesn’t matter what he knows when they all believe otherwise. He knows that if they had any lawful ground to stand upon, they would depose him, find some distant member of his father’s family they can rule by proxy. But he also knows they won’t because Arthur has something the court does not, and that is the love of the people. He’d had it even before being separated, and he still has it now. With Guinevere and Merlin to be entirely honest with him about the lives led by smallfolk, he may know more about their conditions than the rest of the court combined, and with Morgana, whole and beloved and personable, to interact with them when he cannot, he is still favoured above any other noble.

Still, he knows he will have to be careful for some time, ensure he does not give them any foothold until they come to terms with the fact that he is their king. It had taken the court well over a year and a half to become more or less…indifferent to his separation. Now that he is king, he’ll give it at least three, and another two before he even thinks to broach the subject of magic.

In the meantime, however, he’s given Merlin free reign to continue studying his magic, but also to learn about the state of the kingdom in the years before the Purge, about the laws which governed magic, which magics were permitted and which were not. There is a room in the library, hidden behind a false wall, full of such records. Gaius had shown it to Arthur; when prompted, Geoffrey had admitted that even a king cannot change the heart of a librarian, and no true librarian could let history burn. Merlin has made it into his own private study of sorts; even when he is fulfilling his duties as a manservant (which he has markedly less of now), Ómrasyn will be in there doing reading of her own. He no longer bothers to pretend he and Ómrasyn are unseparated; there are rumours that Arthur is responsible for it, that he and Angharad somehow pulled them apart. Merlin pays them no more mind than he had when he first came to Camelot.

Today, however, it is only Merlin in his private study. Ómrasyn is nowhere to be seen, which means she is likely with Guinevere or Morgana. Angharad is just down the hall, conversing with Leon. His relationship with his First Knight has improved a great deal this past year. Leon still looks a little bemused when Angharad leaves a room without Arthur, but Seraphalia will perch on her back when they are together again.

“What are you reading today?” Arthur asks, looking around the cluttered disarray which Merlin insists has a system. “Please tell me it isn’t Geoffrey’s court records again. I think I may go blind if I read any more of that dullness.”

Merlin snorts as he closes the book he’d been reading and slides it aside. “No, nothing like that. It’s a play, actually. I needed something new to read, it looked interesting.” He rises from the table and stretches both arms above his head with a groan.

“A play?” Arthur leans forward over the table to see the cover, having to tilt his head in order to read the title properly. “I think I saw that performed once. Years ago, though. I can only remember parts of it. What act are you in? Perhaps I’ll remember.”

Merlin drops his arms and makes to step past. “Don’t recall.” His voice has changed, taken on a tension that hadn’t been there a moment ago.

Frowning, Arthur catches his elbow and draws him back a step. “What’s the matter with you?”

“It’s nothing. I’m tired, nothing more.”

“Now I know you are lying.” He drops his hand from Merlin’s arm. “If you don’t want to tell me, you need only say so. It’s only a play, I wasn’t—”

 _“Arthur,”_ Merlin says, unexpectedly intent, and Arthur closes his mouth midsentence, staring. “Forgive me, it’s just…gods, it’s been years now, and you still don’t…” He breaks off with a shake of the head, running a hand back through his hair.

“What are you talking about? I don’t…what?”

Merlin gazes back at him for a long moment. Indecision flickers across his face before resolve appears to solidify in him even as his shoulders drop slightly and a sigh escapes him. He takes a half-step closer, but in the small space, even a half-step puts them closer than is exactly sociable; Arthur is suddenly very aware of how little space there is, his pulse rising slightly. “‘Was this the face that launch’d a thousand ships,’” Merlin’s voice is low, rough, “‘And burnt the topless towers of Ilium?’” He is so close Arthur can hear the click in his throat when he swallows. “‘Sweet Helen, make me immortal with a kiss!’”

Oh. _Oh._ Gods have mercy on him, it can’t be possible, he’s never been so fortunate in anything. “Merlin, I—”

He gets no further than that because then Merlin’s mouth is on his and Merlin’s hands are framing his face, holding onto Arthur as though he is like to vanish if treated too roughly. Arthur has kissed and been kissed many times before, by noble ladies and highborn maidens and kitchen maids and peasant women, but not like this, never like this. Merlin kisses him as though the continuance of his life depends upon it, and will end if he stops; instead of pulling away, pushing back, Arthur gives a low whine down in his throat and twists his fingers around Merlin’s tunic and opens his mouth. He arches his back when Merlin slides a hand down his spine and shivers when the other buries itself in the back of his hair, shifts his feet further apart when a knee nudges between his, and _oh,_ that cold hollow place in his chest is warmer and fuller than it had been before, a sensation so foreign and powerful it sets him shivering.

Arthur doesn’t know what would’ve happened next—well, no, actually he’s fairly certain he does know, only it makes him flush to think on it—but there is a somehow-hesitant knock from the other side of the false wall which opens into the room, the voice of a page calling for Merlin, wondering if he has seen the King, Lady Morgana is looking for him.

He forces himself to breathe in deep and exhale slow, settling the pulse beating in the back of his throat before he is able to speak. “Thank you, and tell Lady Morgana I will see her shortly in the council hall.”

There is muffled assent from the other side of the wall, a departing shuffle of footsteps, and then there is only quiet, broken by their breathing. Arthur is grateful that so few people know the trick of opening the false wall. He can scarce imagine what the page’s reaction would have been had he entered, seen the King backed into a table, wrapped in an embrace with his manservant, a breath away from allowing said manservant to lean him forward over said table and have his way.

“Arthur…” Merlin murmurs, still pressed into him, his weight making Arthur arch back over the table.

Arthur releases his grip on Merlin’s tunic, guides him back a step with hands on his waist, then sets to righting his own clothes, reaching up to smooth his hair and fix his collar. He cannot look at Merlin, not without wanting to pull him back in and carry on as they had and not stop this time, so he keeps his eyes down on the pretense of making himself presentable once more.

Merlin is still standing just a step away from him, flushed up and so lovely it aches. “Arthur—”

“I will see you at supper,” Arthur says quickly. If he lets Merlin finish whatever it is he means to say, he’ll not be able to leave. It is already taking all he has not to kiss him again, he cannot bear much else.

When he leaves the private room, Merlin hastens after him because of course he does, he is Merlin and has no idea how to stop when he is ahead.

“Wait, hold on, just let me— _ah!”_ His words give way to an alarmed yelp as, in his haste to keep up with Arthur’s stride, he stumbles over the uneven flagstones at the end of the corridor—which have been _always_ been there, how does he _still_ not know to step _over_ them, the damn fool?—and pitches forward. He would have gone headfirst down the stairs if not for Angharad; loping down the corridor a few paces behind them, coming to catch Arthur up, she lunges forward, seizes the back of Merlin’s tunic in her teeth, and yanks, setting her not-inconsiderable weight back against his forward momentum. He overcorrects and falls _backwards_ instead, flinging out both hands to try and arrest himself, one slapping against the wall…and the other seizing a fistful of mottled fur at Angharad’s shoulder.

All the breath is pulled from Arthur’s lungs in an instant, and he staggers, has to stop and press his back to the wall midway down the staircase, gasping like a man half-drowned and shaking, shaking all over, from the marrow of his bones outward. No one has ever, _ever_ …

Merlin is still sitting at the top of the stairs, frozen, an expression of utter dismay on his face. He has let go, but his arm is still raised, hand hovering a scant inch away from Angharad, who has not moved away from him, either, the three of them frozen together in a kind of surreal tableau. When Arthur breaks it to push off from the wall and start back up the stairs, it sparks movement in Merlin as well, trying to shuffle backwards on his hands, gabbling out words so quickly they are almost incomprehensible, “Arthur, I’m sorry, it was an accident, an accident, I didn’t mean—”

Arthur leans down and seizes Merlin by the front of his jacket, hauling him up to his feet, then moves his grip the back of Merlin’s neck, using it to drag him down the corridor. Merlin stops blathering for a miracle, stumbling alongside, and beneath his thumb, Arthur can feel the rapid thrum of Merlin’s pulse. Ómrasyn catches them up just as they are nearing the royal apartments, claws scrabbling across the floor in a mad dash. She doesn’t say anything to Angharad, only matches pace with her, breathing in quick, nervous pants as they enter Arthur’s chambers.

He shoves Merlin in ahead of him, waiting only long enough for Ómrasyn and Angharad to sidle in before yanking the door shut. Merlin staggers, nearly falls, and catches himself on the table, righting himself and pressing back against it, almost the very same position Arthur had been in, a lifetime ago in the library; Ómrasyn winds herself between his feet, half hiding behind him and half standing before him, thick fur bristling out for emotion, eyes fixed on Angharad.

Leaning back against the door, Arthur stares across the way at Merlin. “Do you remember the rest?” he asks at last.

Merlin blinks, rapid and confused. “I—what?”

“The play. Do you remember the rest? I told you, I only saw it performed once, I cannot remember what he says after,” Arthur says.

Something in Merlin’s expression shifts, the beginning of understanding in his gaze, and his voice is steadier as he replies, “Her lips free my soul; see it fly untether’d! Come, Helen, come, bring me my soul again.”

Arthur pushes away from the door. Two strides and he is to Merlin, taking hold of his tunic and pulling him forward to another kiss, and gods help him, it is just as desirous and all-consuming as their kisses in the library, an oil-soaked rag put to flame. Merlin’s arms go around him, holding him close and tight, and when his mouth slides down to Arthur’s neck, tracking hot, damp kisses over his throat, Arthur feels as much as he hears Merlin mumbling into his skin, “Thou art fairer than the evening air—clad in the beauty of a thousand stars—more lovely than the monarch of the sky—oh!”

Merlin startles against him, pulling back sharply to look downwards at Angharad, who is pressed tight to their legs, rubbing the side of her body against them in long passes, cheek to hip before circling around to do it again. His gaze comes back up to Arthur’s, holding his eyes unblinking as he untangles a hand from Arthur’s hair and reaches down to stroke the top of Angharad’s head.

The shock of it pierces him like a lance, a blow which goes all the way through him to his core, and in the aftermath of the shock, a tide of want surges through his blood, a ribbon of molten gold uncoiling from within that hollow place in his chest to set him alight from within. Arthur digs his fingers into Merlin’s flanks and _keens_ , soft and needing, and he is shaking hard enough that Merlin stops biting soft kisses onto his throat and asks if he is well.

When he opens his eyes again, he sees Ómrasyn on the tabletop behind Merlin, her fur bristling out as she shivers, whiskers twitching, eyes bright. Arthur extends a hand to her but halts an inch above her back, meeting her black gaze in silent question.

“Please, oh, _please,”_ she implores.

Touching Ómrasyn is like holding a star in his bare hands, something so bright and powerful and untamed, and Arthur almost falls to his knees at this last feeling of _contact,_ touching and being touched, separate and connected. When Merlin scratches behind Angharad’s ears, Arthur’s toes curl in his boots. When Arthur rakes fingers through Ómrasyn’s fur, Merlin’s back arches. It is too much, far too much, yet it is also nowhere near enough.

He knows what will be.

The bed is too far, but it hardly matters, not when there is a thick new fur rug laid out in front of the fireplace. Arthur doesn’t have anything in his chambers to use for slick—no point in it, since he never expected to ever have anyone in his bed again—but Merlin’s eyes glow with starlight and there is no pain when he shifts his hips forward. Arthur shudders and moans, arching and writhing, fingers clutching at Merlin’s sweat-slick back, feeling the flex and ripple of muscle beneath skin as Merlin moves above him, inside him, slow-steady rhythm building up and up and _up_ until all the world becomes a golden haze.

The deep rumble of Angharad purring is audible from where she is curled up on the bed, Ómrasyn snuggled into the curve of her belly and the thicker fur there. Arthur lets his breathing settle into the same rhythm, pulse gradually slowing. Still braced over him, Merlin trails soft kisses across his face and neck and shoulders, a tenderness that isn’t quite unexpected but still almost overwhelming in its honesty.

The sound of someone pounding on the door of his chamber hard enough to rattle the whole thing is as startling as a bucket of cold water on a drowsy morning.

Arthur screws his eyes shut and drops his head back on the furs with a groan when he hears the barely muffled and clearly incensed voice of Morgana on the other side, disparaging his appearance, intelligence, heritage, and upbringing with some impressive creativity before informing him that if he is not dead or dying, then he soon will be if he should ignore her again. Once there is silence again, above him, Merlin makes a strange noise in his throat, and when Arthur opens his eyes, he sees Merlin trying and failing to repress a smile, trembles running through him—stifled laughter. “Merlin! It isn’t funny!” he protests even as his lips curve up.

Merlin outright snorts at that, dropping his head to Arthur’s chest in a burst of giggles, and Arthur finds himself laughing along, helpless to resist. Of course, Merlin is still inside him, and the movement of their laughter makes Arthur gasp and squirm, which makes Merlin groan and shift his hips, which makes Arthur…. Well.

When they come back to themselves, panting anew, Arthur reaches up to smooth dark sweat-damp curls back from Merlin’s brow. “You’re trembling.”

“I’m alright,” Merlin reassures and turns his head into Arthur’s hand, kissing his palm.

Sighing, Arthur coaxes Merlin down atop him, head resting in the crook of his neck, stroking the back of his hair and nape. The hollow place in his chest, that emptiness he’s carried for so long, is full to the brim with warmth and love and gold, and he can feel Merlin’s heart beating against his own, a tandem so perfect he cannot tell them apart. “And none but thou shalt be my paramour,” he murmurs, smiling faintly.

“Mm?” Merlin sounds half-asleep already.

“Nothing.” Arthur kisses his temple. “Nothing, love.”

**Author's Note:**

> Arthur—Angharad, snow leopard (formerly African leopard)  
> Merlin—Ómrasyn, fisher  
> Uther—Tyfainne, griffon vulture  
> Morgana—Selvelet, emperor dragonfly  
> Gaius—Viliastora, bearded dragon  
> Leon—Seraphalia, gyrfalcon  
> Gwen—Letholdus, snowshoe hare  
> Iseldir—Rulmina, English badger  
> Vivian—Enava, peacock  
> Elena—Balon, red deer  
> Mithian—Vanolas, osprey  
> Mordred—Athelis, Jameson's mamba  
> Hunith—Axel, fallow deer  
> Will—Tasha, coyote


End file.
